From Clark to Superman
by Misha
Summary: Clark thinks about the events that led to him becoming superman.


From Clark to Superman 

By Misha 

Disclaimer- I totally do not own any of the characters of Smallville (though I wish I owned Lex!), they belong to a lot of people with more money than me. I am not making any money off using them in this story, so please don't sue me. 

Author's Notes- Another angsty fic dealing with Clark and Lex's future. This one is from Clark's PoV and just focuses on how he lost the innocence and naivete that he once had. There's a tiny bit of slash, but not much. Also, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't know a lot about the "Superman" universe. I don't read the comic books and it's been years since I've seen the movies, so with the exception of "Smallville", I have little knowledge of the characters and their backgrounds. I mean, I do know the basic facts about Superman, I know who Lois Lane is, and that Lex Luthor is the bad guy. But other than that... So, I just made things up. Well, that's all for now, enjoy! 

Spoilers- Everything 

Rating- PG 

We are all born innocence. Some of us just keep that innocence longer than others. 

I was innocent until I was fifteen, but even after I was first exposed to the madness and evil that lurks in this world, I still believed that there was good in everyone. 

I still thought friendship was the most powerful thing in the world. I believed in the people around me, the people I loved. I honestly believed that none of them would ever hurt me. 

I was wrong about all three things. I learnt my lesson the hard way. With the help of one man. 

A man I now despise. But whom I didn't always. 

I know now that I needed to learn those lessons. 

That it was that chapter in my life, that brutal realization, that helped me go from Clark Kent, innocent farm boy, to Superman, the man I am today. 

I also know that that lesson could have embittered me, turned me away from the world as I nursed my pain. But instead, I continued the vow I had made when I first discovered what I really was, my vow to help people. 

I had just learnt that you couldn't change everyone, that sometimes there were souls that you couldn't reach and that you couldn't let them destroy you. 

As _he_ almost destroyed me. 

He was my best friend. 

Funny as it is, he's still one of the best friends I ever had. 

For a little while we connected. He was my friend and if things were different, he might have been more. 

I know now that I loved him, as truly as I've ever loved anyone. That I cared for him as more than a friend, though, as a teenager in Kansas, I wasn't ready to admit it. 

Not that I got the chance. I didn't even realize that I loved him until long after it was over. Not until long after he had become my enemy. 

People warned me, time and time again, that Lex wasn't all that he seemed. That there was a darkness in him, that he was tainted, just like his father. Like all Luthors. 

I brushed them all off. 

I trusted Lex, believed in him. After all he was my best friend. 

From the moment we met, I felt a connection to him. Deep down I believed that he was right when he told me that we had a destiny. 

Now, I know that he was, but... Not like either of us suspected. 

I believe he was good then. That I wasn't that wrong. That there was a part of Lex, that was truly the lost soul that he seemed, that he wanted to be good, but didn't know how. 

But maybe it was wishful thinking, for in the end, everyone else was right. Lex was evil. 

I don't know how it started. Maybe he turned a blind eye to one little infraction in order to get what he wanted and it just erupted from there... I don't know. 

I know that I turned a blind eye to it, long after Chloe first came to me with her suspicions that there was something really corrupt going on at Lex's plant. 

She started to dig into it, sensing a story, and I told her she was crazy. I yelled at her. Asked her when she was going to start trusting people and that I knew Lex, that I knew him better than she did. I was so angry at her. I wondered why she couldn't just trust Lex? Why she couldn't see that he wasn't his father. 

We parted angrily that day, neither of us wanting to give in. We were never really friends again. 

Still, I wept when she died in a car accident a few months later. 

At the time, I refused to see the obvious. That Chloe died, just days after she told Pete that she might have found something. I refused to believe it was anything more than an coincidence. 

I kept on refusing to see the truth until long after Lex's father died and he assumed his place of power. 

I was twenty when it finally fell apart. When I finally opened my eyes to the truth. When there was one too many clue to ignore. When two board members of a rival company, who were about to veto a merger with LuthorCorp, suddenly died. 

I was working for Lex then as I went to college, at his assistance. 

And I remember the look on his eyes, when the deaths were announced on the radio. For the first time I saw the triumph there and I felt sick. 

I accused him of it and at first, he acted all innocent, but finally, he smirked and admitted it. But told me that there was no way I could ever connect him to it and he dared me to try. 

I remember shaking my head and hissing that my father was right about him all along. 

Lex didn't say anything, he didn't have to. 

I asked him then, if he was responsible for all those other murders. Lex looked me straight in the eye and asked me what I thought. I responded that someday he would pay. 

He just laughed and said that he wanted to see me try, but that it might be fun to watch. 

Before I turned and walked out of his life, I asked him if I had ever really known him. 

"About as well as I ever really knew you." He answered, a small smile playing on his lips. 

We stared at each other for a moment and then I left. 

It was another decade before we met again, but not as Lex and Clark. Not as the two boys who had been friends in a small town in Kansas. 

No, those days were behind us. 

The next time I saw him, it was under the guise of Superman. 

That was the moment that I knew that the transition I had made was complete. 

There was still a tiny bit of me that wanted to reach out to him and to try and save him. But I knew it was hopeless. 

That those thoughts belonged to someone that no longer existed. 

That they belonged to an innocent farm boy named Clark Kent who believed in friendship and happy endings. 

The End 


End file.
